How to create partitions in Windows 7 [GUIDE]

If you have a lot of free space on your C: drive, the best thing you could do is create another drive on your hard disk by creating a new partition (also known as disk volume).  Luckily, Windows Vista and Windows 7 both let you to do this easily.

You possibly will be thinking that why creating partition is a good idea. The primary storage medium such as a backup drive or DVD’s comes handy when you need to backup something, but as a matter of fact these storage mediums aren’t always immediately available. Hence, an extra partitioned drive will be more convenient in that view. One more reason is that your operating system may some day need to be re-installed and if your personal information/data is stored on the same drive as the OS (C: drive which is common), you might lose your precious things stored on that drive else if it’s not backed up somewhere else.

 

Now that you’ve come to know that why extra partitions are important, then you must create one of your own or as many as you want with the free space. Here’s how you can create partitions in Windows 7:

 

Step#1: Open the disk management console, tap on the start button and type in the word “partition”, then select the result labeled “Create and format hard disk partitions”.

Step#2: In the disk management utility, there will be list of storage mediums displayed, Right click on the C: drive and choose “Shrink Volume”, as this is an initial step for creating the new partitions from the space.
Step#3: Now the system will check to see how much space you can borrow from your C: drive, this process will be displayed as a message.

 

Step#4: After the query process, the size before and size available will be displayed. Type in the number of megabytes you want for your new partition (1024 megabytes = 1 Gigabytes). For safety margin borrow a less space by a one or two thousand MB from the total “available” space.

 

Step#5: After the Shrink process finishes, you’ll see the new partition as “Unallocated”. The next step is to turn it into a simple volume. Right click on the unallocated space and chose “New Simple Volume”.

 

Step#6: After selecting the option, the “New Simple Volume Wizard” will appear.

 

Step#7: Click on the “Next” button, and then you’ll be asked to specify a size for the new volume. The default is what you’d normally require, so click “Next” once more.

 

Step#8: After specifying the space you’ll have to assign a new drive letter. It is advisable to choose a higher letter so that the DVD or other devices on your system won’t have to be assigned new letters when they are detected. Click “Next” when you are done.

 

Step#9: Now you’ll be asked if you want to format the new volume.  Format the new partitioned drive by choosing the file system “NTFS” (the best typical choice). After selecting the file system, tick the “Perform quick format” option then click “Next”.

 

Step#10: You’ll be given a preview of the settings before you launch the formatting process. Go through the info to get assured and click “Finish” when ready.

 

Step#11: Before the process starts, you may get a warning about “Dynamic disks”. If you aren’t dual booting another operating system, you can ignore this and click “Yes”. If you are using more than one OS, you might lose any special boot managers at this point. You should research your best options if that’s the case with you.

 

Step#12: The new disk which you created will now appear in the Disk Management console now, along with other storage mediums.

 

Once you’ve created an additional partitioned drive, you can use it to store your personal stuff.